5 ms·

It appears to be spreading in the community now, which makes me think stopping a pandemic at this point will be very hard. One can only wonder what happens when

by arbuge 7y ago

It appears to be spreading in the community now, which makes me think stopping a pandemic at this point will be very hard. One can only wonder what happens when it reaches places with much weaker health infrastructure, such as Africa and also many parts of India. This seems to me like an accurate assessment of the situation: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-expert-says-coronavirus-likely-just-gathering-steam/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-exper...

ipnon 7y ago
Let alone the United States, a country in which people delay healthcare until the latest possible moment to avoid the costs. This strategy is advantageous to the individual but disadvantageous to the group. The individual may survive without treatment, but without quarantine they proceed to infect those around them. Those around them may be in similar financial conditions.
- baq 7y ago
  my understanding is that the CDC can and will resort to extreme measures to contain any dangerous disease, but what I don't understand is who is paying for treatment of individuals that are affected by those measures. (disclaimer: European here)
  - davidw 7y ago
    I'm sure the government would likely kick in to quarantine people. The problem are all the people who will wait until they're really sick before checking in, or won't go to a doctor at all, and they've already spread it by that point.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    People will still most likely be stuck with the price of their care unless we get to the point that the CDC and the government at large are opening quarantine and treatment facilities of their own to deal with a true outbreak. Short of that most people will just wind up in the normal hospital and healthcare system which means they'd be paying for their own care. It'd be a sad but ultimately useful twist if a big outbreak hitting the US pushed us to finally adopt a reasonable centralized healthcare system. I could see it happening but I could also just see a block of money being set aside to pay for peoples' care too.
    - partiallypro 7y ago
      It's highly likely that in such a mass event the US would have a debt forgiveness program or work with healthcare providers to subsidize costs. At that point it would become a national security emergency which would open up federal spending flood gates.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities." -- Meme
- Notorious_BLT 7y ago
  The United States has already been handling the few cases it has pretty aggressively, and following up with anyone who might have come into contact with each person. This feels like you're just jumping on the opportunity to say "US healthcare is bad, guys", which doesn't really make sense when comparing our handling of an outbreak (in which the CDC will mobilize and largely bypass the issues in our healthcare system to mitigate disaster) to India and Africa not having anywhere near the infrastructure to handle this. People are still dying of swine flu in India, a decade later. There's really no comparison, no matter how much you may dislike the US healthcare situation
  - empath75 7y ago
    Us health care hasn’t had to deal with something like the Spanish flu since the creation of the modern health insurance system. It’ll be interesting to see how well it handles millions of people who need extremely expensive ICU care all at the same time. I expect we’ll see one or more insurance companies collapse or need a government bail out.
    - E14n 7y ago
      The information release so fare makes this look more like a bad flu with a 2.5% mortality rate, nothing like the Spanish Flu's 10%~20%. The Spanish Flu was also especially bad because it effected young adults disproportionately[1]. This caused massive problems because that was the age group of most care givers. 1. as appose to 0.1~0.2 for regular flu 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/
  - DanBC 7y ago
    > People are still dying of swine flu in India, a decade later. In the 2017-2018 flu season over 70,000 people died in the US, and the main strain was H3N2 - a type of Swine Flu. The A(H1N1pdm09) strain is still circulating in the US and still causes death there too. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/burden-of-h1n1.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/burden-of-h1n1.ht... > CDC estimates that from 2009 through 2018, influenza A H1N1pdm09 has caused at least: 100.5 million illnesses, 936,000 hospitalizations, and 75,000 deaths.
mc32 7y ago
Bill Gates (among others) has a pessimistic view in that regard. He thinks it could be devastating if we’re not lucky.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dao- 7y ago
> One can only wonder what happens when it reaches places with much weaker health infrastructure, such as Africa https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/14/coronavirus-latest-updates-wuhan-hubei-china-deaths-cruise-ship-sydney-cases-covid19-live-news https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/14/coronavir...
- fspeech 7y ago
  Hopefully it doesn't spread as readily in warmer places without air conditioning.

by arbuge 7y ago

ipnon 7y ago

Let alone the United States, a country in which people delay healthcare until the latest possible moment to avoid the costs. This strategy is advantageous to the individual but disadvantageous to the group. The individual may survive without treatment, but without quarantine they proceed to infect those around them. Those around them may be in similar financial conditions.

baq 7y ago
my understanding is that the CDC can and will resort to extreme measures to contain any dangerous disease, but what I don't understand is who is paying for treatment of individuals that are affected by those measures. (disclaimer: European here)
- davidw 7y ago
  I'm sure the government would likely kick in to quarantine people. The problem are all the people who will wait until they're really sick before checking in, or won't go to a doctor at all, and they've already spread it by that point.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  People will still most likely be stuck with the price of their care unless we get to the point that the CDC and the government at large are opening quarantine and treatment facilities of their own to deal with a true outbreak. Short of that most people will just wind up in the normal hospital and healthcare system which means they'd be paying for their own care. It'd be a sad but ultimately useful twist if a big outbreak hitting the US pushed us to finally adopt a reasonable centralized healthcare system. I could see it happening but I could also just see a block of money being set aside to pay for peoples' care too.
  - partiallypro 7y ago
    It's highly likely that in such a mass event the US would have a debt forgiveness program or work with healthcare providers to subsidize costs. At that point it would become a national security emergency which would open up federal spending flood gates.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities." -- Meme
Notorious_BLT 7y ago
The United States has already been handling the few cases it has pretty aggressively, and following up with anyone who might have come into contact with each person. This feels like you're just jumping on the opportunity to say "US healthcare is bad, guys", which doesn't really make sense when comparing our handling of an outbreak (in which the CDC will mobilize and largely bypass the issues in our healthcare system to mitigate disaster) to India and Africa not having anywhere near the infrastructure to handle this. People are still dying of swine flu in India, a decade later. There's really no comparison, no matter how much you may dislike the US healthcare situation
- empath75 7y ago
  Us health care hasn’t had to deal with something like the Spanish flu since the creation of the modern health insurance system. It’ll be interesting to see how well it handles millions of people who need extremely expensive ICU care all at the same time. I expect we’ll see one or more insurance companies collapse or need a government bail out.
  - E14n 7y ago
    The information release so fare makes this look more like a bad flu with a 2.5% mortality rate, nothing like the Spanish Flu's 10%~20%. The Spanish Flu was also especially bad because it effected young adults disproportionately[1]. This caused massive problems because that was the age group of most care givers. 1. as appose to 0.1~0.2 for regular flu 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734171/
- DanBC 7y ago
  > People are still dying of swine flu in India, a decade later. In the 2017-2018 flu season over 70,000 people died in the US, and the main strain was H3N2 - a type of Swine Flu. The A(H1N1pdm09) strain is still circulating in the US and still causes death there too. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/burden-of-h1n1.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/burden-of-h1n1.ht... > CDC estimates that from 2009 through 2018, influenza A H1N1pdm09 has caused at least: 100.5 million illnesses, 936,000 hospitalizations, and 75,000 deaths.

mc32 7y ago

Bill Gates (among others) has a pessimistic view in that regard. He thinks it could be devastating if we’re not lucky.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dao- 7y ago

> One can only wonder what happens when it reaches places with much weaker health infrastructure, such as Africa https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/14/coronavirus-latest-updates-wuhan-hubei-china-deaths-cruise-ship-sydney-cases-covid19-live-news https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/14/coronavir...

fspeech 7y ago
Hopefully it doesn't spread as readily in warmer places without air conditioning.